Edgar was sizing up the creature, trying to find the best place to send a bolt of wind into the creature.
“The outside might look soft, but the interior is much more durable,” Jonathan warned the man, who nodded.
Instead of loosing his bolt, he repurposed the energy, casting it on Jonathan. In the time since leaving the dungeon, the man had furthered his mastery of some of his skills, and his speed enhancing one had been upgraded, which allowed for Jonathan to move ever quicker than normal. The world around him seemed to slow down, and the swings of the golem became even more ponderous, and pitifully easy to dodge. Jonathan ran towards it, and up its arm, heading back for the monster’s head. He had an ability that would negate the unnatural hardness of the monster’s second layer, but it would take a lot out of him. If he focused all of his energy solely on his Hungering Decay skill, he could burrow through the monster more effectively.
He ran up its arm like a monkey and reached its head a moment later, beginning to summon his concentrated elemental energy to his hands. A brief flare of purple fire heralded the arrival of pure nothingness, and Jonathan thrust his fist down into the onyx stone of the monster. It ate straight through it, and the monster let out a loud bellow of pain, for the first time in the fight. Jonathan had just graduated from a pest to an actual threat.
He swung again, depleting his energy reserves with every strike. As the enhanced strikes slammed down into the onyx, it started to weaken somewhat as the effects of his skill reverberated through the stone. However, this was not to last, The monster swiped its hand over its head in such a way that Jonathan was unable to dodge, and he was knocked off of the monster, the breath taken out of him but the brute force that the monster possessed. He flipped through the air, his chest bruised from the impact, and landed on the mountainside, taking a moment to recover.
With him out of the picture for now, the monster set its sights on Edgar, who started to float up into the air. The man got out of the way of the monster just in time, and its fingertips almost brushed his feet as it swiped through the air at him. Edgar started to barrage the weakened section of the monster’s head with his spells, causing flakes of rock to break off.
Jonathan ran down the mountain, towards the monster, and started to send his energy into his fist, ready for round two. This would be a tricky opponent, but not one out of his abilities to defeat. The only problem was that its nature would prevent it from dropping the blood and bone that he needed. As it was made out of rock rather than flesh and blood, there would be no Tier 2 blood and bone to upgrade his weapon and armor with. However, the essence would be valuable enough.
Jonathan leaped from the bottom of the hill, having built up quite some speed, and rocketed towards the monster, landing on its fist. It snapped it up a moment later, trying to shake him off, but Jonathan rode the momentum, landing on its head a moment later. Edgar had widened the hole in the monster’s skull and Jonathan laid into it with his fists, starting to see a small amount of luminescence poking up out of the rock. The monster became frenzied at this point, and spikes of rock started to erupt out of the ground around it, heading for Jonathan. They moved like the tendrils of building material that Granath had sent after him at Edgar, but this time there was no mana making them up. It was simply an extension of the monster.
The tendrils slammed together on top of its head, and Jonathan leaped over them, landing once again once they had retracted. He kept at it, but was not prepared for what happened next. The flesh of the monster began to melt, the rocky skin fusing together into a layer of molten rock. The monster roared in pain, but as the tide of superheated rock began to course across its skin, Jonathan felt the heat. It was far higher than the lava in the dungeon had been, and it would easily burn his skin. Jonathan jumped off of the monster, narrowly avoiding a scalding surprise, and landed next to the monster’s leg. The lava was beginning to cool, creating a layer of obsidian over the monster’s skin. It seemed to have entered a second phase of sorts.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Jonathan retreated, waiting until the lava had fully cooled before he moved in again. This would be harder than before, but it was still doable as long as Edgar supported him. This monster was not a Tier 2 for no reason. It had all sorts of special abilities and possessed even more power than it normally would, given the fact that it was a boss tier monster.
The obsidian had cooled fully by this point, and Jonathan moved in, testing the rock with his fist. As he struck, it barely cracked, even with all of his strength. The monster stamped the earth, and Jonathan was tossed off his feet as the ground buckled beneath him, sending him flying into the air. A moment later the monster blurred, showing more speed than it had before, and swatted Jonathan out of the air, fracturing his bones. He slammed into the ground, groaning, and rolled to the side as the monster stomped again, trying to crush him. Jonathan’s entire body hurt, but he kept going, looking up to see Edgar gathering up the mana from the air around him, preparing a powerful attack. Jonathan only needed to stall the monster for long enough to let Edgar strike, although he had no idea how much damage it would end up doing. Edgar was powerful, but he was not that powerful, and although he had greater stopping power than Jonathan, at least sometimes, this monster was on another level. Still, Jonathan had faith in his companion.
He weaved around the monster, dodging tendrils of obsidian that rocketed out of the ground towards him. All of the monster’s attacks had taken a qualitative leap forwards, and they were faster as well as stronger. Jonathan found himself hard pressed to avoid the strike, having to push off of them as they came to get out of the way in time. His wrists creaked as he did so, but he managed to forestall serious damage for long enough for Edgar to send off his attack.
A lance of pure energy shot down from on high, limned in the light of Edgar’s wind elemental energy. It slammed into the monster’s head, driving it to one knee. The attack started to spin midair, drilling down into the creature’s head. Small bits of conceptual power carried off the chunks of rock that the attack tore off, stopping the monster from repairing itself. It was a clever use of the weight negating effects of Edgar’s more advanced applications of his element, and Jonathan could not help but be impressed. He still had a part to play though, and he ran forwards, and up the monster’s arm, which was dangling to its side. Jonathan scurried up it, using the small whorls and knobs left by the cooling lava to pull himself upwards. A moment later, he was at the beast’s head, ready to strike. The area was cracked from Edgar’s attack, and Jonathan drove his fist down into it, infusing it with all of his different energy types. Red light mingled with purple, all summited by a patch of pure nothingness.
It came down like a meteor, right into the crack. There was a loud snap, and the crack extended, racing across the creature’s head. A moment later, the thing fell apart, and the monster fell to the ground, turning into nothing more than a pile of rocks. Jonathan leaped off gracefully at the end, as the essence rushed into him. He reached level 93 with the surplus power, and grinned as he came ever closer to Tier 2. However, unless these high leveled monsters were common in these parts, it would take a lot longer for them to reach the next Tier. Besides, Jonathan had some goals before the ranked up, no least of which was to bring his pathway skills all up to Journeyman Rank. With the amount of time on his hands, that would not be an insurmountable challenge. However, it would still take weeks, if not months to do so.